How to read immunohistochemistry results

Women who have undergone cervical examinations should not be particularly unfamiliar with the immunohistochemistry test, but most people in life are unfamiliar with immunohistochemistry. Immunohistochemistry is mainly a detection method for the occurrence of certain cancer diseases in women's bodies, and the results presented by immunohistochemistry are also very complex. Today’s article will teach women how to read the results of immunohistochemistry.

1. CK-P(-)—not cancer.

2. LCA (-), CD3 (tumor cell one), CD2 (tumor cell one) - not lymphoma (malignant tumor).

3. Syn(-), CgA(-), CD56(-)—Tumors not of neuroendocrine origin.

4. Ki67(+)>80%—The proliferation index is very high, indicating a malignant tumor.

Extended answer:

The main purpose of immunohistochemistry is to locate it and determine what process or function it is related to. For example, if immunostaining only occurs in a specific cell, it can be inferred that it is related to a specific function of the cell. Furthermore, if immunostaining only appears at a certain stage in tissue or cells, it may be related to the specific effects at that stage.

We can then design further experiments based on these results, such as inhibiting or promoting its expression to study whether it has an effect on specific functions, thereby determining the relationship between various signaling pathways.

The advantage of immunohistochemistry lies in its spatial localization, which can reflect the functional changes of the factors you are detecting. Before the experiment, you should estimate the expression site and positive expression rate of the factor you are testing based on the literature, then read the positive and negative pairs of photos you made, and analyze the reasons for the various results.

First of all, if you want to detect the location of antigens in cells, in addition to the antigens on the cell membrane that can be detected by immunohistochemistry, it is best to use immunofluorescence for antigens in the cell nucleus and cytoplasm. This way, the cell nucleus localization can be done, which is clearer and more intuitive.

Second, if immunohistochemistry is done, I think the main thing is to be able to observe the positive percentage and strength of antigen expression, such as counting 200 cells to calculate the positive rate of positive cells, or judging the strength of expression based on the depth of brown staining of positive cells.